Too many tabs open for far too long. Time to show and tell. Starting with the "Running Up That Hill"/"Sign o' the Times" mashup above. (via) Savory!
There's also a lot of deliciousness to be had from this Four Tet mixtape.
And I had forgotten the giddy fun of Bellflower, which I saw late one night at the Independent Film Festival of Boston this spring. (via)
The cinetrix has mostly stayed the fuck out of the ongoing fray vis-a-vis critics, vegetables, and whatever. The exception being finally reading smart Geoff Dyer's 2009 Guardian piece on Stalker. Particularly love this idea:
It would be interesting to compile a list of the first words spoken in films and run the results through a computer. In this instance they are spoken by the wife: "Why did you take my watch?" The film's only just started, she has just woken up and, from a husbandly point of view, she is nagging. No wonder he wants out! But of course we're also getting the big theme introduced: time. In effect, Tarkovsky is saying to the audience: "Forget about other ideas of time. Stop looking at your watches, give yourself over to Tarkovsky-time, and the helter-skelter mayhem of The Bourne Ultimatum will seem more tedious than L'Avventura."
And this bit of cheek:
After the Stalker leaves, his wife has one of those sexualised fits of which Tarkovsky seems to have been fond, writhing away in a climax of abandonment. He, on the other hand, like many men before and since, has gone to the pub. He's not there to meet his mates - this is not Distant Voices, Still Lives - but the people he's taking into the Zone. From the bar they can hear a train, can hear that lonesome whistle blow. So there are hints, here, of a heist movie - the Stalker being lured back into the Zone for one last job - and of a sci-fi western (ie "eastern"). They leave the bar, begin their journey into the cinematic unknown.
On the whole, though, much more fun than probing the critical omphalos is reading the Boston Globe's Ty Burr's weekend movie picks from last Friday, reproduced here almost in its entirety:
I have no idea what this movie is about other than Ryan Reynolds lightly smirking his way through a plot that combines the DNA of the dogfight scenes in "Top Gun," the Cantina sequence in "Star Wars," and the pick-up scene in "Superman," and manages to insult all three. Even "Top Gun," which is difficult. Kudos to Mark Strong for playing the part of a parboiled maitre'd with a pencil-thin moustache and an attitude. Double kudos to Blake Lively for her impersonation of a plank.
Servicey!
Finally (for now), this New Year, I resolved to give up reading comment threads. I slip up sometimes, but talk about an enhancing quality of life decision! Only two sites are exempt: The Hairpin and its brother blog, The Awl. Which brings me to the latter's Movies Written or Directed by John Hughes, in Order.
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TTFN
